Europeiska arkivhandlingar
Europeiskt identitetsskapande i samtida ABM-projekt
European UnionIdentityNationalismHeritageArchivesDigitisation.Europeiska unionenIdentitetNationalismKulturarvArkivDigitalisering.
The aim of this master?s thesis is to analyse the construction of European identity in three ofcontemporary EU initiated projects for the digitisation of collections from museums, archives, andlibraries. The source material consists of the web pages of the projects Minerva, MICHAEL, andEuropeana, as well as some other policy documents on digitisation and access from EU authorities.Theories on nationalism and construction of heritage are used as an overall context to the problem.After a brief description of the mentioned projects, the author undertakes an analysis of theways that the concept of ?European heritage? is depicted in the source material. The result is thefollowing: normally, the true European heritage is considered being united even though it isdiveded culturally, historically and linguistically. The real European spirit is seen as consisting intolerating and celebrating these internal differences. There is also a discourse on the idealEuropean citizen, who actively strives to enlargen her knowledge on (European) culture andhistory.However, there is also a narrower conception of European heritage, which can be discernedfrom some of the analysed sources. This latter definition of Europeanness, stresses Christianityand a tradition of civilisation, rationalism, and science. The ?Other?, the non-Europeans, can thusbe interpreted as the negation of these ideals.